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'*THE SETTLEMENT OF BURLINGTON" 



AN ORATION 

DELIVERED IN THAT CITY, DECEMBER 6, 1877 



BY 

HENRY ARMITT BROWN 

IN COMMEMORATION OF 

THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

of its Settlement by the passengers of the good ship Kent, 

who landed at Raccoon Creek, Aug. i6th, O. S., 

and laid out the town on Chygoe's Island 

"towards ye latter part of ye 

8th month," 1677 



PUBLISHED BY RESOLUTION OF THE CITIZENS 



<<<^OFCO/v,V^^ 

BURLINGTON, N. J. x . ^ 

1878 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 

HENRY ARMITT BROWN, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 



PHILADELPHIA: COLLINS, PRINTER. 






CORRESPONDENCE. 



Burlington, Dec. 12, 1877. 

Mr. Henry Armitt Brown. 

Dear Sir: The Committee appointed by the President of the Bi-Centennial 
Committee to request a copy of your Oration delivered at the Bi-Centennial Cele- 
bration of the City of Burlington, N. J.,*on Dec. 6, 1877, would respectfully ask 
that you would furnish them with the manuscript on as early a day as may suit 
your convenience. 

Yours, with great respect, 

FRANKLIN GAUNTT, M.D., 

JAMES O'NEILL, 

F. W. MILNOR, 

NATHAN HAINES, 

L. VAN RENSSELAER, M.D. 



113 South 2ist Street, Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1877. 

Gentlemen: 

In obedience to the very courteous request of your note of the 12th of 
December, I inclose the MS. of the Oration delivered at Burlington on the after- 
noon of the 6th, and am 

Very truly yours, 

HENRY ARMITT BROWN. 

To Franklin Gauntt, M.D. 

Ledyard Van Rensselaer, M.D. 
James O'Neill, Esq. 
Col, F. W. Milnor, and 
Nathan Haines, Esq. 

Committee. 



^^11' gOrlii^gton. 1877. 

^i-(^eqteqqiai. 
Birdn'^ opera noli^e. 
y\dmit Oqe. ' 
ihilr^aay, aederqber ^ixtn. 



The people of Burlington, New Jersey, determined early in the 
summer of 1877 to celebrate with appropriate services the Two 
Hundredth Anniversary of the founding of their city. A committee 
ivas accordingly formed of the following gentlemen : From the 
Common Council, James O'Neill, Alexander Martin, Joseph Par- 
■ish, M.D., James Willitts, John A. Vandergrift, and Philip Silpath, 
fr. From the Board of Trade and Burlington Exchange, Hon. 
f. Howard Pugh, M.D., Richard F. Mott, Col. F. W. Milnor, 
^Vm. S. Taylor, Franklin Woolman, C. Ross Grubb, L. Van Rens- 
lelaer, M.D., Samuel W. Taylor, Charles E. Allen, and Nehemiah 
sleeper; and from the citizens. General E. Burd Grubb, Hon. 
Ilaleb G. Ridgway, Alexander Van Rensselaer, Robert B. Carter, 
Franklin Gauntt, M.D., Rowland J. Dutton, Nathan Haines, J. 
31iver Glasgow, J. S. Adams, D. D. S., and George I. Miller. 
Upon organization, this body divided itself into the necessary sub- 
;ommittees and chose the following officers: President, Hon. J. 
rioward Pugh, M.D. ; Vice-President, Hon. Caleb G. Ridgway; 
secretary, Nehemiah Sleeper; Corresponding Secretary, J. Oliver 
jlasgow; and Treasurer, James O'Neill. As the settlement of the 
own had taken place " toward ye latter part of ye 8th month 1677" 
old style) according to the afifidavits of Wm. Matlack and other 
irst settlers preserved in the Records of the Surveyor-General's 



office in Broad Street, it was the intention of the Committee to 
celebrate the event late in October or early in November, but 
Henry Armitt Brown, of Philadelphia, who had accepted the duty 
of delivering the Oration, was called to Europe suddenly in July. 
The Committee determined, therefore, to await his return, and on 
his arrival home on the i6th "of November, Thursday, the 6th of 
December, was fixed upon, and every arrangement made accord- 
ingly. The 5th of December was a stormy day, but on the follow- 
ing morning the rain ceased, the clouds broke, and the weather 
became extremely beautiful. At a very early hour special as well 
as regular trains brought numbers of invited guests from Philadel- 
phia, Trenton, and all parts of New Jersey, and the roads in the 
neighborhood were full of vehicles of all descriptions. Never in 
the history of Burlington had the city been so full of strangers, 
and by ten o'clock the streets on the line of the procession were 
crowded. Bunting hung in all directions from the houses, many 
of which were decorated with evergreens and flowers; the chime 
of St. Mary's Church played in the morning, at noon, and in the 
afternoon, and a salvo of one hundred guns marked the rising and 
setting of the sun. The procession was formed in Main Street at 
half past ten, under the command of General E. Burd Grubb, 
Chief Marshal, and a staff" consisting of Franklin Gauntt, M.D., 
and Messrs. Nathan Haines, E. R. Ellison, and D. G. Walker. 
The column was headed by fifty citizens on horseback led by Mr. 
George G. Felton, assisted by Messrs. Brewin, Dubel, and Taylor. 
The Chief Marshal, Gen. Grubb, followed with his staff, and then 
in order the Burlington Band, Company F (of Beverly), Captain 
Eckendorfif, 6th Reg. ; Company A (of Burlington), Captain Phil- 
lips, 6th Reg.; Company F (of Mt. Holly), Capt. Barrows, of the 
Seventh Regiment N.J. State Militia; the Vincenttown Band, Chief 
Engineer Jeff"ries and Assistants, and visiting Chiefs, Fire Company 
No. 25 of Philadelphia, National Cornet Band, Endeavor Extin- 
guisher Co. dragging their old hand engine ; Drum Corps, Good 
Intent Fire Company of Mount Holly, Hope Fire Engine Co. of 
Burlington, the Smithville Band, Young America Fire Co. of Bur- 
lington, Winkler's Band, Hand-in-Hand Fire Co. of Trenton, Mc- 
Clurg's Band, Bristol Fire Co. with Pioneer Corps, Mitchell Fire 
Co. of Burlington, and the Junior and Senior Orders of American 



Mechanics. The procession, which was much the largest and most 
elaborate ever seen in Burlington, was closed by citizens in carriages. 
Before three o'clock in the afternoon the new Opera House (but 
recently finished by Mr. Birch) was filled to overflowing. Admis- 
sion was by ticket, but before the exercises began the parquet and 
gallery were densely packed. The stage had been reserved for 
the officers of the day, the Bi-Centennial Committee, the officials 
of the city, and distinguished guests. Among the latter were the 
Rt. Rev. Wm. Henry Odenheimer, D. D.,LL. D., Bishop of the 
Diocese of Northern New Jersey, and the Rt. Rev. John Scarbo- 
rough, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese of Southern New Jersey, the 
Very Rev. George H. Doane, Roman Catholic Vicar-General of 
Newark, and many eminent representatives of other communions, 
the Hon. Joel Parker, and the Hon. W. D. Newell, Ex-Governors 
of New Jersey, the Hon. J. C. Ten Eyck, Ex-Senator of the United . 
States, and other prominent men. On the right and left of the 
stage were tables for the representatives of the Press. At three 
o'clock the immense meeting was called to order by the President 
of the Day, Hon. J. Howard Pugh, M.D., Member of Congress 
from the Second District of New Jersey, and Bishop Odenheimer, 
in his Episcopal robes, opened the exercises with prayer. Vocal 
music by an octette of the Orpheus Club of Philadelphia followed. 
Dr. Pugh next made a short and admirable address, and, after 
another song had been sung, introduced Henry Armitt Brown, who 
delivered his Oration. At its close Franklin Gauntt, M.D., offered 
the following resolutions: — 

1. "Resolved, That the citizens of Burlington unite in a vote of 
thanks to Mr. Henry Armitt Brown, the Orator of the Day, for his 
interesting, valuable, and historic address, which so graphically 
describes the early settlement, progress, and growth of Burlington 
as one of the oldest Christian towns in this country. 

2. "Resolved, That the Chairman of the Bi-Centennial Commit- 
tee be directed to appoint a Committee to request of Mr. Brown a 
copy of his Oration for publication. 

3. "Resolved, That our thanks are cordially tendered to the 
Orpheus Club, for their generous contribution to our edification 
and pleasure by their delightful rendition of choice songs and 
ballads. 



8 



4- ^'Resolved, That the thanks of the citizens of Burlington are 
due, and are hereby tendered to the members of the Bi Centennial 
Committee, and more especially to the Committee of Arrangement, 
for their unremitting exertions in conducting the entire celebration 
to a successful and creditable conclusion." 

The resolutions having been unanimously adopted by a rising 
vote, the vast audience dispersed about six o'clock P. M. 

Many of the houses of the citizens, which had been hospitably 
opened to strangers all the day, continued so during the evening, 
and the celebration closed with an illumination, which was general. 




ORATION. 



There are few events in American history 
more interesting than that which we commemo- 
rate to-day. There are few stories more honor- 
able than that which I shall have to tell. The 
sun which has broken through the clouds of this 
morning with such unexpected and auspicious 
splendor, has rarely looked down upon an anni- 
versary more worthy to be observed than this 
which marks the peaceful planting of a people — 
the founding of a free and happy Commonwealth. 
The life of old Burlington has been a modest one. 
She sings no epic song of hard-fought fields and 
gallant deeds of arms; she tells no tales of con- 
quest, of well-won triumphs, of bloody victories. 
Seated in smiling meadows and guarded by the 
encircling pines, her days have been full of quiet- 
ness and all her paths of peace. The hand of 
Time has touched her forehead lightly. The 
centuries have flown by so softly that she has 
hardly heard the rustle of their wings. The 
stream of years has flowed before her feet as 
smoothly as the broad bosom of her own great 



lO 



river by whose banks she dwells. But her history- 
is none the less worthy to be remembered, for it 
is full of those things which good men rejoice to 
find in the character of their ancestors — of a 
courage meek but dauntless, a self-sacrifice lowly 
but heroic, a wisdom humble and yet lofty, a love 
of humanity that nothing could quench, a devotion 
to liberty that was never shaken, an unfaltering 
and childlike faith in God. And it is right that 
it be remembered by those who enjoy the blessings 
which such qualities have won. " I wish," wrote 
one who had witnessed the beginning, describing 
in her old age the dangers and trials of her youth, 
"I wish they that come after may consider these 
things."* Seven score years have gone since that 
was written. The heart that held that hope has 
long been still. The hand that wrote those words 
has been motionless for more than a century, and 
the kindred to whom they were addressed have 
vanished from the earth. But here to-day in that 
ancient town, strangely unaltered by the changes 
of two centuries — here amid scenes with which 
those venerable eyes were so familiar — we who 
have "come after" have assembled to fulfil that 
pious wish — to "consider those things" with rev- 
erence and gratitude, and take care that they be 

* Account of Mary Murfin Smith in Baxter and Howe's N. J. 
Hist. Coll., p. 90. Mrs. Smith came with her parents while yet a 
child. She was drowned in 1739. 



II 



held hereafter in eternal remembrance and ever- 
lasting honor. 

The causes which led to the event which it is 
my duty to describe to-day are to be found in 
one of the most interesting periods of English 
history. The attempt of Charles I. to secure for 
the Crown a power which not even the pride of 
Henry VIII. had claimed had ended in disastrous 
failure. Conquered by his people, the unfortunate 
monarch had paid for his folly with his life — a 
victim less of political hatred than of that personal 
distrust which his frequent want of faith had 
planted in the breast of friends and foes — and 
England was nominally at peace. In reality, how- 
ever, she continued in commotion. The excesses 
into which their triumph over their king and his 
party not unnaturally led the victors were soon 
over, and already, in 1650, the reaction had set in 
which was destined to lead the country backward 
to the Restoration. But the passions into which 
the civil wars had thrown all classes would not 
easily cool. The struggle of the Cavalier and the 
Roundhead was not like that in which two great 
sections of a vast country — each in itself a unit — 
are pitted against each other. It aroused feelings 
far more personal and bitter. Families were di- 
vided amongst themselves, and every man was in 
arms against his neighbor. No single county had 
borne the brunt of a war which had involved all 



12 



alike, ravaged the whole country, and brought 
desolation to half the hearths in England ; and, 
though peace might be proclaimed, some of the 
spirits which it had called up would not down 
even at the bidding of such a man as Cromwell. 
Feared at home and abroad, and armed with an 
authority which belonged less to his office than to 
himself, the victor of Worcester could govern his 
turbulent countrymen, but pacify and unite them 
he could not. It might have been possible had 
their differences been simply political, but a deeper 
feeling entered into all the actions of that time. 
It was the age of politico-religious fanaticism. 
The Cavalier and the Roundhead, the Royalist 
and the Republican, had they been nothing more, 
might have been made to sit down in peace to- 
gether under a liberal and strong government, 
which, though it represented the peculiar ideas 
of neither, expressed in its actions many of the 
views of both. But Baptist, Presbyterian, and 
Independent, Protestant and Roman Catholic no 
man could reconcile, and between the many sects 
which the spirit of free inquiry had bred in the 
heat of those fanatic days the most vigorous ruler 
England had ever seen had hard work to keep the 
peace. It is not easy in these colder, calmer times 
to understand the polemic spirit of that age. It 
had arisen suddenly and grown with amazing 
speed, and the transition from the manners of the 



13 

time when the graceful Buckingham had set the 
fashion to those of a day in which the psalm- 
singing soldier of Cromwell stood guard before 
Whitehall, was as extraordinary as it had been 
startling and abrupt. Religion now was the main- 
spring of men's actions, the subject of their talk, 
the basis of their politics, the object of their lives ; 
it is strange that religious liberty remained yet to 
be contended for. Too near to the Reformation 
to have escaped its spirit, and not far enough from 
Philip and Mary's day to have forgotten the crimes 
committed in their name — of which indeed he 
had had beneath his eyes a constant reminder in 
the scenes of which Holland had been the theatre 
for more than sixty years — the Englishman of 1650 
was sincerely and aggressively a Protestant, and it 
might naturally have been expected that religious 
freedom would in his mind have gone hand-in- 
hand with the civil liberty for which he had 
recently gained such splendid and substantial tri- 
umphs. But such was not the case. Free from 
political tyranny from within, he would not brook 
even the semblance of interference in religious 
matters from without, but, in the fierce contro- 
versies of Englishmen with each other, liberty of 
conscience meant to the zealous theologian of that 
day — when all men claimed to be theologians — 
only the right of all other men to yield their own 
opinions and agree with him. It was soon ob- 



H 

served that the sincere bigotry of the Roman 
Catholic and the proud intolerance of the English 
Churchman had only given place to a fervent but 
narrow piety, which, like them, would brook no 
opposition, mistook differences of opinion for 
hostility, and watched all other creeds with a 
jealous and unchristian eye. Forgetful of the 
truth that all cannot think alike, mixing essentials 
and non-essentials in blind confusion, and armed 
with the cant and loose learning of the day, men 
went forth to controversy as the knights errant 
of an earlier and more chivalric, but not more 
zealous, age went forth to battle. Each sect be- 
came a political party, and every party a religious 
sect. Each in its turn, according to its power, 
persecuted the others, and all united to persecute 
the Quakers. 

I have no time to-day to describe the rise of the 
Society of Friends. Considered only as a political 
event and in its bearing upon the struggle for civil 
and religious liberty, it is a strange chapter in the 
history of progress, and it is one of the peculiar 
glories of those whom the world calls Quakers, 
that without justice to their achievements such a 
history would be incomplete.* It was in the midst 
of the stormiest years of the civil war that George 
Fox began his ministry. An humble youth 
watching his flocks by night in the fields of Not- 

* Vide Bancroft's Hist. U. S., vol. ii. chap. xvi. 



15 

tingham, he had heard, as he believed, the voice 
of God within him, and seen afar off the star that 
was to become the beacon of his chosen people. 
That light shining impartially on all; that voice 
speaking to the hearts of all alike; God and the 
soul of man in close communion — the Creator and 
the humblest of His creatures face to face — here 
was at last the scheme of a spiritual democracy 
striving to lead all men in a single pathway, and 
unite the nations under the same promise of sal- 
vation. A mystery even to himself, and believing 
that he was divinely appointed. Fox went forth to 
preach to his countrymen the new gospel founded 
on freedom of conscience, purity of life, and the 
equality of man.* The times were ripe for such 
a mission. The public mind was like tinder, and 
the fire that came from the lips of the young en- 
thusiast soon set England in a blaze. The people 
flocked to hear him, and his enemies became 
alarmed. Here was not only a new religious 
creed, but a dangerous political doctrine. Here 
was an idea, that, once embodied in a sect, would 
strike a blow at caste and privilege, and shake the 
very foundations of society. But nothing availed 
to tie the tongue of Fox or cool the fervor of his 
spirit. Threatened, fined, and beaten, he turned 
neither to the right hand nor to the left. Often 

* Vide Fox's Life, Barclay's Apology, Goiigh and Sewell, Besse, 
and Penn's Witness. 



i6 

imprisoned, he was released only to set forth again 
undaunted. 

His followers rapidly increased, and the sober 
yeomanry of England began to abandon all and 
follow him. At Cromwell's death the Quakers 
were already a numerous people. At the Restora- 
tion they had grown to dangerous proportions. 
Obnoxious naturally to all parties, there were rea- 
sons why they incurred especial hatred. Their 
refusal to fight, to take an oath, to pay tithes or 
taxes for the repairs of churches, or acknowledge 
the authority of the priesthood, their determina- 
tion to worship God publicly and proclaim the 
truth abroad, aroused the hatred of the Church, 
angered all other sects, and brought against them 
the penalties of the existing law, while their sim- 
ple but unwavering determination not to take off 
their hats, "not for want of courtesy," as they 
said, but as a symbol of their belief in man's 
equality, gained for them the suspicious hostility 
of those whose privileges such a principle would 
utterly destroy. 

Against them, therefore, was directed the ven- 
geance of all parties and of every sect. Under 
all governments it was the same, and the Quaker 
met with even worse treatment from the Puritan 
government of New England than he had re- 
ceived from either the stern republican of Crom- 
well's time, or the gay courtier of the Restoration. 



^7 

Though his hand was lifted against no man, all 
men's were laid heavily on him. Everywhere he 
was exposed to persecution and nowhere under- 
stood. His religion was called fanaticism, his 
courage stubbornness, his frugality avarice, his 
simplicity ignorance, his piety hypocrisy, his free- 
dom infidelity, his conscientiousness rebellion. In 
England the statutes against Dissenters, and every 
law that could be twisted for the purpose, were 
vigorously enforced against him.* Special ones 
were enacted for his benefit, and even Charles II., 
from whose restoration they, in common with all 
men, expected some relief — good-natured Charles, 
who in general found it as hard to hate his enemies 
as to remember his friends; too indolent, for the 
most part, either to keep his word or lose his 
temper — took the trouble to exclude the Quakers 
by name from all indulgence. f During the Long 
Parliament, under the Protectorate, at the Restora- 
tion — for more than thirty years — they were ex- 
posed to persecution, fined, turned out of doors, 
mobbed, stoned, beaten, set in the stocks, crowded 
in gaols in summer, and kept in foul dungeons 
without fire in the winter time, to be released at 
last and sold into colonial bondage. J But though 

* Vide Bancroft's Hist. U. S., vol. ii. chap. xvi. 

f Letter of the Kuig to the Massachusetts Government. 

% Vide Williamson's North Carolina. In one vessel, in March, 
1664, sixty Quaker convicts were shipped for America. Vide also 
Besse and Fox's Journal, Anno 1665. 



1 yj 



they fought no fight, they kept the faith. What- 
ever history may record of their lives; whatever 
learning may think of their attainments; whatever 
philosophy may say of their intelligence; what- 
ever theology may hold about their creed; what- 
ever judgment a calmer posterity, in the light of a 
higher civilization and a freer age, may pass upon 
their actions, none can deny that they were men 
who sought the faith with zeal, believed with sin- 
cerity, met danger with courage, and bore suffer- 
ing with extraordinary fortitude. Gold had no 
power to seduce, nor arms to frighten them. 
"They are a people," said' the great Protector, 
"whom I cannot win with gifts, honors, offices, or 
places."* Dragged from their assemblies, they 
returned; their meeting-houses torn down, they 
gathered on the ruins. Armed men dispersed 
them, and they came together again. Their ene- 
mies "took shovels to throw rubbish on them, and 
they stood close together, willing to be buried 
alive witnessing the Lord."'|- And when in one of 
their darkest hours their comrades lay languishing 
in prison, the rest marched in procession to West- 
minster Hall to offer themselves to Parliament as 
hostages for their brethren. 

I know of few things in the history of the 
English race more noble than this act. No poet 

* Bancroft's Hist. U. S., vol. ii. p. 345. Fox's Journal, p. 162. 
f Bancroft's Hist., vol. ii. p. 355. Barclay, 356, 483, 484. 



19 

has made it the subject of his eulogy, and even 
the historians of civil and religious liberty have 
passed it by. But surely never did the groined 
arches of that ancient hall look down upon a 
nobler spectacle. They had seen many a more 
splendid and brilliant one, but none more honor- 
able than this. They had looked down on balls 
and banquets, and coronations and the trial of a 
king, but never, since they were hewn from their 
native oak, did they behold a sight more honorable 
to human nature than that of these humble 
Quakers grouped below. They had rung with 
the most eloquent voices that ever spoke the 
English tongue, but never heard before such 
words as these. (Let me repeat them here to-day, 
for amongst those that spoke them were men that 
founded Burlington): "In Love to our Brethren," 
they say to Parliament, " that lie in Prisons and 
Houses of Correction and Dungeons, and many 
in Fetters and Irons, and have been cruelly beat by 
the cruel Gaolers, and many have been persecuted 
to Death and have died in Prisons and many lie 
sick and weak in Prison and on Straw" — we "do 
offer up our Bodies and Selves to you, for to put us 
as Lambs into the same Dungeons and Houses of 
Correction, and their Straw and nasty Holes and 
Prisons, and do stand ready a Sacrifice for to go 
into their Places, that they may go forth and not 
die in Prison as many of the Brethren are dead 



20 



already. For we are willing to lay down our 
Lives for our Brethren and to take their Suffer- 
ings upon us that you would inflict on them. 
* * * And if you will receive our Bodies, 
which we freely tender to you, for our Friends 
that are now in Prison for speaking the Truth in 
several places; for not paying Tithes; for meeting 
together in the Fear of God; for not Swearing; for 
wearing their Hats; for being accoimted as Va- 
grants; for visiting Friends, and for Things of a 
like Nature. We, whose Names are hereunto 
subscribed, being a sufficient Number, are waiting 
in Westminster-hall for an Answer from you to 
us, to answer our Tenders and to manifest our 
Love to our Friends and to stop the Wrath and 
Judgment from coming to our Enemies."* 

Well done, disciple of the shoemaker of Not- 
tingham! No prince or king ever spoke braver 
words than these! What matter if your Parlia- 
ment send back for answer soldiers with pikes and 
muskets to drive you out into the street? Go 
forth content! What if your brethren languish 
and die in gaol? You shall not long be parted. 
What if the times be troubled and nights of sorrow 
follow days of suffering? They cannot last for- 
ever. What if the heathen rage and the swords 
of the wicked be drawn against you? The peace 

* Vide Preface to Joseph Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers, vol. 
i. p. iv. 



21 

within you they cannot take away. The world 
may note you little and history keep no record of 
your life. Your kindred may pass you by in 
silence and your name be unremembered by your 
children. No man may know your resting place. 
But what of that ? You have done one of those 
things that ennoble humanity — and by One, at 
least, who saw it, you will not be unrewarded nor 
forgotten ! 

Such was the condition of affairs when the 
opportunity of the Quakers arose out of the neces- 
sities of their enemies. Between the Dutch New 
Netherlands and the English colony of Virginia 
lay a noble river draining a fertile and pleasant 
land. Hudson had discovered it in 1609, and the 
following year the dying Lord De la Warr had 
bequeathed to it his name. For thirty years the 
three Protestant nations of Europe had contended 
tor its shores, each victorious in its turn, until, at 
length, the dominion of the Dutchman and the 
Swede came to an end forever, and the flag of 
England floated in triumph over their few and 
feeble settlements.* 

It was at this time, in the year 1664, that the 

* I cannot but regret the necessity which compelled me to pass 
by in a paragraph the forty years which followed the expedition of 
Capt. Mey. Some future historian of Pennsylvania will find them 
full of fascinating materials. Isaac Mickle's Reminiscences of Old 
Gloucester is well worth readin"; in this connection. 



22 

Duke of York, afterward James the II., eager to 
mend his fortunes, persuaded King Charles II. to 
give him a large share of the newly-acquired 
territory in America. It was hardly yet subdued, 
but Charles carelessly complied. In a patent, the 
date of which reveals the Duke's haste to secure 
the grant, the King conveyed to his brother all 
that territory which may be roughly described as 
lying between Delaware Bay and the Canadian 
border. Hardly had the ink become dry upon 
this parchment when James himself, in considera- 
tion of "a competent sum of money," sold what 
is now known as New Jersey to two of his friends. 
Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley. England 
was now full of colonization schemes. The rude 
interruption of the civil war was over, and men 
began to remember the days when Smith and 
Raleigh were wont to return from America with 
glowing descriptions of what they had seen in 
that mysterious country. A sterner age had 
followed, and few now perhaps cherished the 
golden visions which had led those brilliant ad- 
venturers into the exploits which have immortal- 
ized their names, but there still lived in the 
Englishman of the seventeenth century the love 
of adventure, and the desire to spread the do- 
minion of the Crown, and America lay before 
him an attractive field. The failure of Sir Ed- 
mund Ployden to carry out his romantic and 



23 

fantastic plan of building up a power called New 
Albion, of which he assumed in advance the title 
of Earl Palatine,* taught an unheeded lesson, and 
dreams of future empire continued to dazzle many 
an English mind. But years passed by without 
result. Carteret, the younger of the new pro- 
prietors, managed to plant some settlements in 
Eastern Jersey, where to this day the city of 
Elizabeth perpetuates the name of his accom- 
plished wife, and a few Englishmen from Con- 
necticut found a precarious foothold on the banks 
of the Delaware, but for the most part all attempts 
to encourage immigration ended in expensive 
failure. As it had been with Massachusetts it was 
with Pennsylvania and the Jerseys. The foot of 
the adventurer was not suffered to rest in peace 
upon soil destined by the Almighty for a nobler 
purpose than to enrich the unworthy or mend the 
broken fortunes of an English nobleman. The 
fingers which had grasped so eagerly the choice 
places of the New Continent were quickly to be 
loosened, and the wilderness kept ready as a place 
of refuge for an oppressed and persecuted people. 
After ten years of thankless efforts and un- 
profitable ownership, and too old to hope for a 
realization of his plans, my Lord Berkeley became 

* Vide Mickle's Reminiscences of Old Gloucester, p. 24; Beau- 
champ Plantagenet's Description of New Albion, in the Philadel- 
phia Library. 



24 

anxious to be rid of his province, and offered it 
for sale. The opportunity was a rare one for the 
Quakers. To America they had naturally looked 
as a place to which they might escape and bear 
with them in peace their peculiar principles and 
creed. In that distant country they might, it 
seemed to them, worship God according to their 
consciences. Three thousand miles of sea (ten 
times as great a distance then as now) would lie 
between them and their enemies, and in the 
wilderness, at least, with trial and privation would 
dwell peace. 

For a while, indeed, they were deterred by a 
sentiment that was natural to men of English 
blood. Persecution, thought some of them, ought 
not to be avoided. The trials, the sufferings, the 
dangers to which they were exposed it was their 
duty to meet, and not to shun. Let us endure 
these things for the glory of the truth, and not try^ 
like cowards, to avoid them. Let us bear this 
burden ourselves, nor leave it for others to take up. 
This unwillingness to flee before the face of per- 
secution held them for some time resolute and 
firm. But, at length, another sentiment prevailed. 
It sprang from the thought that others were des- 
tined to come after them. There is nothing more 
remarkable in the history of this country than the 
fact that those who settled it seem everywhere 
alike to have been moved by the belief that they 



25 

acted, not for themselves, but for posterity. Not 
for himself alone did the Pilgrim embark upon 
the Mayflower : not for himself alone did the 
Puritan seek a shelter on the bleak shores of 
Massachusetts: not for himself only did Roger 
Williams gather his little colony at the head of 
Narragansett Bay; and the same faith that he was 
building in the wilderness a place of refuge for 
the oppressed forever led the stern Quaker out of 
England. Not for us, but for the sake of them 
that shall come after us. This was the faith that 
sustained them without a murmur through all the 
horrors of a New England winter; that kept their 
courage up while the Connecticut Valley rang 
with the warwhoop of the Indian ; that raised their 
fainting spirits beneath the scorching rays of a 
Southern sun; that made them content and happy 
in the untrod.ien forests of New Jersey. 

"The settlement of this country," writes one 
who witnessed it, *'was directed by an impulse on 
the spirits of God's people, not for their own ease 
and tranquillity, but rather for the posterity that 
should be after them."* 

Proud may we justly be, Americans, of those 
who laid the foundations of our happiness. I 
know of no people who can point to a purer and 

* Thomas Sharp's Mem. in Newton Mo. Mtg. Records. FiWi 
Bowden's Hist, of Friends, p. 16. 
2 



26 

less selfish ancestry — of no nation that looks back 
to a nobler or more honorable origin. 

There were many reasons why our forefathers, 
when at last they had convinced themselves that 
it was right for them to emigrate, should have 
turned their eyes upon New Jersey. The unre- 
lenting Puritan had long ago shut in their faces 
the doors of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth 
Colony. New York had already been appropri- 
ated by the Dutch, and the followers of Fox could 
find little sympathy among those who had estab- 
lished settlements within the wide borders of the 
Old Dominion. Besides, George Fox himself had 
travelled across New Jersey two or three years be- 
fore. He had seen the beauty of the South River 
and the majestic forests that lined its shores. The 
Swedes and Dutch upon its banks were few in 
number, and of a peaceful disposition, and the 
Indians, its natives, were noted for their gentle- 
ness. The river of Delaware was universally 
described as a ** goodly and noble river" — the soil 
was rich and fertile, "the air," as was soon to be 
written, was "very delicate, pleasant, and whole- 
some, the heavens serene, rarely overcast, bearing 
mighty resemblance to the better part of France,"* 
Just at this time the property of Lord Berkeley 



* Gabriel Thomas's Description of Pennsylvania and West Jer- 
sey, published in 1698, p. 7. 



27 

was offered for sale. The wealthier men among 
the Friends saw the opportunity and Edward Byl- 
lynge and John Fenwick became its purchasers. 
A devoted Friend, Byllynge had been one of those 
who offered themselves as hostages at Westminster 
in 1659. He had suffered like all the rest, but 
had continued to be thought a man of property. 
But times were hard, and when the conveyance 
came to be made the name of John Fenwick, as 
trustee, was substituted for that of Byllynge, and 
after a little while all the interest of the latter was 
given up for the benefit of creditors to three trus- 
tees, Gawen Lawrie, Nicholas Lucas, and William 
Penn. Now for the first time in American history 
appears the name of that great man whom, in the 
words of Lord Macaulay, who viewed him with 
mistaken and unfriendly eye, "a great Common- 
wealth regards with a reverence similar to that 
which the Athenians felt for Theseus and the 
Romans for Quirinus."* It is interesting to re- 
mark, as one reads of the reluctance with which 
he assumed this task, how directly Penn's connec- 
tion with the settlement of Burlington led to the 
founding of Pennsylvania. 

It was now the year of Grace 1675. John Fen- 
wick, a soldier of the civil war and now a Quaker 
(whose memory has been recently preserved by 

* Macaulay's Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 394- 



2« 

the pen of a Jerseyman*), soon set sail with his 
family and a small company of Friends. Entering 
the Capes, after a prosperous voyage, he landed on 
the Eastern Shore at a "pleasant, rich spot," to 
which, in memory of its peaceful aspect, he gave 
the name of Salem — an appellation which that 
quiet town has continued to deserve even unto 
this day. Two years of comparative inaction fol- 
lowed. Troublesome disputes between Fenwick 
and Byllynge, which it required all the authority 
and address of Penn to settle, threatened destruc- 
tion to the colony. But at length these came to an 
end, and the settlement began in earnest. There 
were important things to be done at the beginning. 
First, the province had to be divided by agreement 
with the owner of the other half, and this was 
not accomplished until 1676. A line was pro- 
vided to be drawn northward from Egg Harbor to 
the Delaware dividing the province into two. The 
eastern part was taken by Sir George Carteret ; the 
other by the trustees, who gave it the name of 
West New Jersey. Penn and his agents next 
divided their share into one hundred parts, of 
which they assigned ten to Fenwick and ninety 
to the creditors of Byllynge. But their most 

* Hon. John Clement, of Haddonfield, N. J., to whom I am 
indebted for kind suggestions in the preparation of this address. 
A full account of the relations of Fenwick and Byllynge may be 
found in his valuable History of Fenwick's Colony. 



29 

important duty was to frame a constitution for the 
new country. This was no easy task. None of 
these men were legislators. Neither by birth nor 
election had they enjoyed the advantages of expe- 
rience in the legislative bodies of their country. 
They were not generally men of reading or educa- 
tion (with the exception of Penn), nor of that train- 
ing which is usually essential to true statesmanship. 
Nor in those days had the making of free con- 
stitutions been a frequent task. He who attempted 
it entered an unknown and dangerous country, 
full of disappointments. Lucas and Lawrie were 
men of business little known; Penh was a youth 
of two-and-thirty, and among all their associates 
there were few who had knowledge and none who 
had experience of Statecraft. But they were ani- 
mated by the truest spirit of philanthropy, by the 
sincerest love of liberty, by the warmest devotion 
to what they understood to be the command of 
God. And they were, after all, worthy to lay the 
foundations of a free and humane government. 
Independence of thought, Freedom of person. 
Liberty of conscience: these were the things they 
all believed in and for them they were ready to 
make any sacrifice. For liberty they had suffered 
each and all. For it, men like them had scorned 
danger and gone chanting into battle. For the 
sake of it they had even welcomed the horrors of 
civil war. For it they had charged their brethren 



3° 

at Naseby and ridden rough-shod over their kindred 
upon Marston Moor. And now they were ready, 
if the day were lost at home, to abandon all and 
seek it beyond the sea. On liberal principles, 
then, did they naturally determine to build up 
their new government in the wilderness, where a 
cen:ury afterward their children, for whom they 
were making so many sacrifices, were destined to 
fight over again the same battle with an equal 
courage and devotion. Little did they dream — 
those stern yet gentle men of peace — when they 
gave to their infant Commonwealth freedom from 
all taxation except what its own Assemblies should 
impose, that a hundred years later England would 
rise up, sword in hand, to take it back; that for 
the sake of a principle, which they never thought 
to call in question, the little town which they were 
about to found would one day tremble at the roar 
of contending cannon, and the banks of Delaware 
be stained with English blood! Could they have 
been permitted to foresee the struggle that was 
yet to come they could not more wisely have 
prepared posterity to meet it. First, they created 
an Executive and Legislative power; the former 
to be chosen by the latter, the Assembly by the 
people, voting to be by ballot, and every man 
capable to choose and to be chosen. Each mem- 
ber of the Assembly they agreed "hath liberty of 
speech," and shall receive for wages one shilling a 



3^ 

day, "that thereby he may be known as the servant 
of the people." No man shall be imprisoned for 
debt nor, without the verdict of a jury, deprived 
of life, liberty or estate, "and all and every person 
in the province shall, by the help of the Lord and 
these fundamentals, be free from oppression and 
slavery." The Indian was to be protected in his 
rights and the orphan brought up by the State. 
Religious freedom in its broadest sense was to be 
secured, and no one "in the least punished or hurt, 
in person, estate or privilege, for the sake of his 
opinion, judgment, faith, or worship toward God 
in matters of religion; for no man nor number of 
men upon earth have power to rule over men's 
consciences."* "Such," writes one who, though 
an alien to their blood and of an hostile creed, 
could do them justice, "is an outline of the com- 
position which forms the first essay of Quaker 
legislation, and entitles its authors to no mean 
share in the honor of planting civil and religious 
liberty in America."j* Happy wo.uld it have been 
for the children of those simple-minded men had 
they never departed from ideas so true, so wise, 
and so humane ! 

The authors of this document, adopted and signed 
on the 3d of March, 1676, seem to have seen the 

* Smith prints this remarkable document in full in the appendix 
to his History of New Jersey, p. 512. 

f Hist, of the U. S., by James Grahame, LL.D., vol. i. p. 475. 



32 

goodness of their handiwork. "There," they cry 
in words which are at once a prophesy^ and a 
confession of faith, **we lay a foundation for after 
ages to understand their liberty, as men and 
Christians, that they may not be brought in 
bondage but by their own consent. For we put 
the power in the people."'^ 

So much, then, for this government on paper. 
Where now are the men to put it into execution? 
They come from two different parts of England. 
Amongst the creditors of Byllynge were five 
Friends who dwelt in Yorkshire. Persecutions 
had been very severe in that county, and York 
Castle at one time contained a large number of 
prominent Friends. f Amongst- these latter were 
five heads of families who were glad to join the 
creditors of Byllynge in their new plan for settling 
West Jersey, and a company was speedily formed 
amongst them, which was known as the Yorkshire 
Company. It was thus that the names of Clayton, 
Ellis, Hancock,. Helmsley, Stacy, and Wetherill 
first came to be transported into Jersey. Meantime 
another company was forming in the vicinity of 



* Letter of Penn and the others to Hartshorne, London, 6th mo. 
26th, 1676; Smith's Hist, of N. J., p. 80. 

■\ Wm. Clayton, Richard Hancock, John Ellis, Richard Guy, 
and Richard Woodmancy were in York Castle at different times 
between 1660 and 1677; Christopher Wetherill in Beverley Gaol 
in 1560. Vide Besse, J>assim. 



33 

London. Men came from different parts of Eng- 
land to join its ranks; William Peachy, fresh from 
his trial at Bristol and under sentence of banishment 
as a convict for attending "meetings;" John Kin- 
sey,of Hadham in Hertfordshire, himself a prisoner 
a few years before, and marked among these set- 
tlers of Burlington as the first to die; John Cripps, 
twelve days in a cell in Newgate for "keeping his 
hat on in a bold, irreverent manner" when the Lord 
Mayor passed by into Guildhall; Thomas Ollive, 
familiar with the inside of Northampton Gaol ; 
John Woolston, his companion in that prison, and 
Dr. Daniel Wills, tried for banishment for a third 
offence, and thrice in prison for holding meetings 
in his house.* The last three were all men of 
note, and their joining the London Company had 
great influence on its history. In the little town 
of Wellingborough, the home of Ollive, and near 
which the others dwelt, there was a monthly 
meeting. Here Dewsbury, in 1654, had con- 
verted many to the Truth, and here he had been 
mobbed and thrown in gaol. By the spring of 
1677 his disciples had become numerous in North- 

* Vide Besse's Sufferings, where these facts are all set forth with 
painful particularit)i. The names of nearly all the early settlers of 
Burlington can be found in that record of persecution. I doubt if 
there has ever been another town of which so many of its citizens 
had been in gaol. Certainly no other can speak of the matter with 
so much honest pride. 



34 

amptonshire, and nowhere, perhaps, had the pro- 
priety of going to America been more earnestly- 
discussed. **Many who were valuable," says an 
old account, "doubting, lest it should be deemed 
flying from persecution." In the midst of this 
discussion, he, who had converted so many in the 
place twelve years before, gathered the faithful 
about him and bade them go. "The Lord," he 
said, "is about to plant the wilderness of America 
with a choice vine of noble seed, which shall grow 
and flourish." Let His servants depart thither 
and they shall do well. "I see them, I see them, 
under His blessing, arising into a prosperous and 
happy state."* And so it came about that many 
of that little band followed the lead of Thomas 
Ollive and Dr. Daniel Wills, and turned their 
faces toward London. 

The preparations are now made and the time 
for departure is at hand. The two companies 
have appointed commissioners to govern them — 
Joseph Helmsley, Robert Stacy, William Emley, 
and Thomas Foulke, for the Yorkshire people ; 
Thomas Ollive, Daniel Wills, John Penford, and 
Benjamin Scott, for the London purchasers. They 
have secured a staunch ship, under the command 
of an experienced seaman, and she is now lying 

* Life of Wm. Dewsbury; Account of James and William Brown 
in Nottingham Pa. Mo. Mtg. Records. See also The Friend, vol. 
2 3> PP- 443. 451- 



35 

ready in the Thames. With what feelings does 
this band of self-devoted exiles go on board ! Does 
any one of the half million souls in the great 
metropolis notice the little company of English 
yeomen, as, laden with their scanty store of house- 
hold stuff and leading their wives and children by 
the hand, they shake the dust of England from 
their feet and clamber on the deck? Does any 
one foresee, as he looks with pride on the forest 
of masts and yard-arms that stFetches from Lon- 
don Tower to London Bridge, that of all the ships 
that move to and fro beneath him, or lie at anchor 
in the crowded Thames, but one shall be remem- 
bered ? It is not that big merchantman, fast to 
yonder wharf, discharging the rich cargo she has 
just brought from the Indies; nor this gallant ves- 
sel that, as she swings with :he tide, turns to him 
a hull scarred with many a Dutch or Spanish 
broadside; nor yet the stately ship that, at this 
moment, comes slowly up, under full sail, from 
Gravesend. Long after these and they that sailed 
them shall have been forgotten, the happy citizens 
of a free commonwealth in a distant land shall 
speak with affectionate remembrance of the good 
ship ''Kent" and "Master Godfrey Marlow !" 
Obscure and unnoticed and, perhaps on that ac- 
count undisturbed, all are at last on board. They 
have taken leave of their country; it remains only 
to say farewell to their King. It is a pleasant day 



36 

In the opening summer and London is full of gay- 
ety. The banquets at Whitehall have never been 
more brilliant, and the King, in spite of French 
victories and Popish plots and Quaker persecu- 
tions, is as gay as ever. What cares good-natured 
Charles, or my lady of Cleveland, or his Lordship 
of Buckingham if the public mind be full of dis- 
content and the public coffers empty and the pres- 
tige of England be threatened both on sea and 
land? The weather is fine, the French gold still 
holds out, and the charms of Her Grace of Ports- 
mouth are as fresh as ever. The bright sun and 
the pleasant air tempt His Majesty upon the water 
and he passes the afternoon floating in his barge. 
The Thames is full of shipping, for at this time 
London has no rival in commerce but Amsterdam, 
and the King amuses himself watching the vessels 
as they come to and fro. Suddenly the barge 
approaches a ship evidently about to sail. Some- 
thing attracts the King, and draws him near. A 
group of men and women are on the deck, plain 
in appearance, sombre in dress, quiet in demeanor. 
They are of the yeoman class chiefly, and the gay 
courtiers wonder what attracts the attention of the 
King. The two strangely different vessels come 
together, and for a moment those widely separated 
companies are face to face. Charles, with that 
' pleasant voice that could heal with a friendly 
phrase the wounds inflicted by a lifetime of ingra- 



37 

titude, inquires who they are. ^'Quakers, bound 
to America!" is the reply. There is a pause for 
an instant, and then the King, with a royal gesture, 
flings them his blessing, and Charles II. and his 
Qiiaker subjects have parted forever.* Each to 
his fate according to his manner. "Now," said 
old Socrates to his weeping friends, **it is time to 
part, you to life and I to death — which of the two 
thino;s is the better is known only unto God."f 
And now the wind is fair and the tide is full and 
the steeples of London are sinking in the west. 
Farewell, broad fields of Norfolk and pleasant 
Kentish woods! Farewell, ye Yorkshire moors 
and sloping Sussex downs! Farewell, old mother 
England! Our feet shall never tread upon your 
shores again. Our eyes shall never more behold 
your face ; but from our loins a greater Britain 
shall arise to bless a continent with English law 
and English liberty and English speech! 

On the 6th of August (old style), 1677, there is 
excitement on the Kent. The voyage has been 
fair, but the ocean is wide and full of perils, and 
all are longing for the land. Suddenly a faint 
line appears on the horizon. Slowly it rises from 

* Vide Smith's Hist, of N. J., p. 93: "King Charles the Second 
m his barge, pleasuring on the Thames, came alongside, seeing a 
great many passengers, and, informed whence they were bound, 
asked if they were all Quakers, and gave them his blessing.". 

■j- Plato's Apologia, cap. xxxiii. 



38 

the sea until at last the straining eyes of the Kent's 
passengers can make out land. It is a low, sandy 
beach projecting far into the sea. By and by 
behind it appears the faint blue of distant hills, 
and at last the clear outlines of a well-wooded 
shore. The old ship turns to the northwest and 
enters the mouth of a beautiful bay. This is the 
first view of the Western World — the harbor of 
New York. The object the emigrants have in 
view in coming here is to wait upon Sir Edmund 
Andros, the Duke of York's lately appointed go- 
vernor of his territory.* Accordingly the com- 
missioners go on shore. Andros receives them 
coldly. They inform him of their purpose to 
settle on the Delaware. He feigns an ignorance 
of their authority. They remind him of the law 
and repeat how the land in West Jersey was 
granted by the King to his brother, by the Duke 
to Carteret and Berkeley, and by them to their 
grantors. It is of no use. "Show me a line from 
the Duke himself," says Andros. They have neg- 
lected this precaution. Upon which the governor 
forbids them to proceed, and when remonstrated 
with, touches his sword significantly. Here is a 
new and unexpected trouble, and it is no comfort 
to learn that John Fenwick is at the moment a 
prisoner in New York for attempting his settle- 

* Smith's Hist, of N. J., p. 93. 



39 

ment at Salem without the Duke's authority. 
Suddenly their perplexity is unexpectedly relieved. 
If they will take commissions from him Sir Ed- 
mund will allow them to set sail, but they must 
promise to write to England and abide by the 
result. Anxious to escape from the dilemma they 
accept the proposal; Fenwick is released at the 
same time, and they set sail for the Delaware. On 
the 1 6th day of August-*— about the 26th according 
to our style — they reach the site of New Castle, 
and presently — 230 in number — land at the mouth 
of Raccoon Creek.* The few settlements of the 
Dutch and Swedes have hardly changed the origi- 
nal appearance of the country, and they find them- 
selves on the borders of a wilderness. The Swedes 
have a few houses at the landing place, and in 
these and in tents and caves our new-comers take 
temporary lodging. It is a change from the snug 
homes to which they have been accustomed, and 
the fare they find is rough, but there is no mur- 
muring among them. "I never heard them say," 
wrote one of their number, who had herself ex- 
changed a pleasant home in England for a cave — 
"I never heard them say *I would I had never 
come,' which it is worth observing, considering 
how plentifully they had lived in England. "f But 

* Smith's Hist., p. -93. 

I Barber and Howe's Hist. Coll., p. 90. My friend Wm. John 
Potts, Esq., of Camden, N. J., an indefatigable antiquary, whose 



40 

they were not given to complaining, and moreover 
the autumn is at hand. Without delay the com- 
missioners set out to examine the country and 
settle the ' terms of purchase with the Indians. 
Accompanied by Swedish interpreters they buy 
three tracts — from the Assanpink to the Rancocas, 
from Rancocas to Timber Creek, and from Tim- 
ber Creek to Old Man's Creek.^^ The Yorkshire 
purchasers choorse the former as their share; the 
London decide to settle at Arwaumus, near the 
present Gloucester; and Daniel Wills orders timber 
to be felled and grass to be cut in preparation for 
the winter. 

But a second thought prevails. Why should we 

acquaintance with early history has been of (he greatest assistance 
to me, writes: "Some of them were obh"ged to live in caves, owing 
to the scarcity of houses. Similar instances occurred in the first 
settlement of Philadelphia. I have the honor to descend from a 
cave-dweller myself. The most noted instance of this I think you 
will find in Barber and Howe, under Columbus, where it is men- 
tioned that in that part of Burlington County Thomas Scattergood, 
whose benevolent name still flourishes among us, brought up nine 
children in a cave." Like Mr. Potts, I can count a cave-dweller 
among my ancestors. One of them sailed up Dock Creek, now 
Dock Street, and landing, lived in a cave below Second Street while 
his house was building. No less a person than Francis Daniel Pas- 
torius lived in a cave in October, 1683. These caves were excava- 
tions in the banks, roofed and faced with logs overlaid with sod or 
bark, or plastered with clay. Vide Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, 
vol. i. p. 171. 

* The list of articles paid for the land can be found in Smith's 
Hist, of N. J., p. 95, Note. 



41 

separate? We have passed through many perils 
together, we are few in number, the forests are 
thick and full of savages; let us build a town in 
company. It is at once agreed upon. Where shall 
it be.? Old Man's Creek is too near John Fen- 
wick's colony ; Assanpink is too far; the mouth 
of the Rancocas is a marsh. None of these points 
will do. About six miles above the last named 
creek, within the limits of the Yorkshire tenth, 
there are two islands. One, called " Matiniconk," 
lies in the middle of the river, which here turns 
suddenly to the south, and forms a little bay. The 
other lies close against the Jersey shore, from 
which it is separated only by a narrow creek 
where the tide ebbs and flows, and is known as 
**Jegou's Island." It has taken this name not 
from an Indian chief, as is at first supposed, but 
from a Frenchman who lately lived at "Water- 
Lily Point."* On this neck of land between the 
Asiskonk Creek and the Delaware River, oppo- 

* In an unpublished lecture delivered in 1870, the Rev. William 
Allen Johnson, formerly Rector of St. Mary's, has solved these 
two questions, which so long puzzled the local antiquary: "Chy- 
goe," he says, is a misspelling of the name of Jegou, and "Lazy" 
or "Leazy" Point — which he has found spelled in five different 
ways — a corruption of the Dutch word Lisch, Pond- or Water-Lily, 
1 have no doubt of the correctness of this simple explanation. 
Water-Lily Point would not be an inappropriate name for the place 
to-day. Mr. Johnson's lecture was the result of much labor and 
careful examination. The credit of settling these points belongs 
entirely to him. 
3 



42 

site Matiniconk, three Dutchmen settled long be- 
fore the surrender to the English. Their rights 
were recognized by Governor Carteret in 1666, 
and soon afterward sold to Peter Jegou, who, 
about 1668, armed with a license from the same 
authority, built on the point, hard by the water- 
side, a log house after the Swedish fashion.* It 
was the only tavern in this part of the country. 
And it was well placed, for at this point the nar- 
row footpath which leads through the woods 
from the banks of the North River comes out 
upon the Delaware, and those who journey from 
Manhattan toward Virginia, must cross the latter 
river at this point. This is the place which Go- 
vernor Lovelace meant when in expectation of a 
journey thither some years ago, he directed one of 
his servants to *'go with the horse allotted by the 
captain, as speedily as you can, to Navesink, and 
thence to the house of Mr. Jegoe, right against 
Matiniconk Island, on Delaware River, where 
there are persons ready to receive you."-|" But the 
journey was not undertaken, for somehow or other 
Jegou became an object of hatred to the Indians, 
and recently (in 1670) they have plundered him 
and driven him away. His house was empty and 

* Record of Upland Court, 9th mo. 25th, 1679; Memoirs of 
Hist. Soc. of Penna., vol. vii. p. 140. 

■j- For this I am indebted to the discoveries among the Records 
at Albany of the Rev. W. A. Johnson. . 



43 

deserted five years ago, as is mentioned by a very 
noted traveller. After a day's journey of fifty 
miles without seeing man or woman, house or 
dwelling-place, he says, *'at night, finding an old 
house which the Indians had forced the people to 
leave, we made a fire and lay there at the head of 
Delaware Bay. The next day we swam our horses 
over the river, about a mile, twice, first to an island 
called Upper Dinidock, and then to the mainland, 
having hired Indians to help us over in their ca- 
noes." This is especially interesting, for the name 
of that traveller was George Fox.* 

"Matiniconk" lies too far from the mainland, 
but Jegou's Island is a very fit place for a town. 
It is about a mile long and half as wide. It lies, 
as I have said, on the only path between the North 
River and the South, and the channel in front of 
it is deep enough for ships of large burthen. Its 
soil is rich, its meadows rank with grass, its trees 
tall and luxuriant, and its green and sloping bank 
destined to be always beautiful. The decision in 
its favor is soon made, and the emigrants, embark- 
ing in small boats, ascend the Delaware. 

Tinakonk, the residence of the ancient Swedish 
Governors; Wickakoe, a small settlement of that 
people, close to the high bluff called " Coaqua- 
nock," **a splendid site for a town;" Takona, an 
ancient Indian town, and the mouth of the Ran- 

* Fox's Journal, 7th mo. loth, 1672. 



44 

cocas, or "Northampton River," are passed In 
turn. It is already late in October, and the wild 
landscape lies bathed in the mellow glory of the 
Indian summer. Beneath a sky more cloudless 
than English eyes have been wont to see waves 
the primeval forest clad in the rainbow garments 
of the Fall. No sound breaks the stillness save 
the plash of the oars in the water or the whistling 
of the wings of the wild-fowl that rise in count- 
less numbers from the marshes. The air is full 
of the perfume of grapes, that hang in clusters on 
the banks and climb from tree to tree, and the 
sturgeons leap before the advancing prow. The 
startled deer stands motionless upon the beach ; 
and hidden in the tangled thickets the Indian 
gazes in silent wonder at the pale-faced strangers 
that have come to take his place in the land of 
his fathers. Presently the river seems suddenly to 
come to a stop. On the left is a gravel beach. 
In the distance in front an island, with a steep red 
bank washed by the rushing stream and pierced 
with swallows' holes. To the right, a bit of 
marsh, the mouth of a silvery creek, a meadow 
sloping to the shore, and then a high bank lined 
with mulberries and sycamores and unutterably 
green. For the first time, and after so many days, 
the eyes of its founders have rested upon Burling- 
ton ! 

Among them was a youth of one-and-twenty. 



45 

The first of his race to be born in the Quaker 
faith, he had grown up amid persecution and 
been familiar with suffering from his boyhood. 
A child of tender years he had, wonderingly, 
followed his family, driven from their old home 
for conscience' sake, and among his earliest 
recollections was the admonition of his dying 
father to seek a refuge beyond the sea. Beside 
him was the English maiden who, in a short time, 
in the primitive meeting-house made of a sail 
taken from the Kent, was to become his wife. 
Little that youthful pair imagine, as they gazed 
for the first time on Jegou's Island, that at the 
end of two centuries, one of their name and line- 
age, looking back to them across the graves of five 
generations of their children, would stand here in 
old Burlington to-day, and lift his voice in com- 
memoration of an event in which they were then 
taking an humble but honorable part!* 

* James Browne, the fourth son of Richard and Mary Browne, 
of Sywell, in Northamptonshire, was born on the 27th of 3d mo., 
1656. His father, whom Wm. Dewsbury had converted in 1654-5, 
died in 1662, before wliich time the family had removed to Pud- 
dington, in Bedfordshire. James remained at Burlington but a 
short lime, settling in 1678 at Chichester or Markus Hook, in Penn- 
sylvania. On the 8th of the 6th month, 1679, he married, at Bur- 
lington, Honour, the daughter of WilliSm Clayton (one of the 
Yorkshire purchasers and a passenger with his family in the Kent). 
He lived on his place, called "Podington," on Chichester Creek, 
until 1705, when he gave it to his son William and removed "into 
the wilderness." He died at Nottingham, Penna., in 1716. 



46 

Among those who landed on the bank at Bur- 
lington on that autumn day was Richard Noble, 
a surveyor. He had come with John Fenwick 
two years before, and his profession had naturally 
made him fam.iliar with the country. To him 
was at once committed the duty of laying out the 
town — a labor in which William Matlack and 
others of the young men assisted.* A broad and 
imposing main street was opened through the 
forest, running at right angles to the river, south- 
ward into the country. It is probable that it did 
not at first extend very far past the place at which 
we are gathered now. Another, crossing it, ran 
lengthwise through the middle of the island, and 
a third was opened on the .bank. The town thus 
laid out was divided into twenty properties — ten 
in the eastern part for the Yorkshire men, and 
ten in the western for the London proprietors. 
All hands went at once to work to prepare for the 
winter. Marshall, a carpenter, directed the build- 
ing, and the forests began to resound with the 
blows of his axe. A clearing was made on the 
south side of the main street, near Broad, and a 
tent pitched there as a temporary meeting-house. 
In a short time the settlement began to have the 
appearance of a town, and, when worthy of a 
name, in memory of a village in old Yorkshire, 

* Wm. Matlack's affidavit, stating these facts, is to be found in 
Book A, in the Surveyor-General's office in Burlington. 



47 

was christened " Burlington."* The dwellings 
were at first caves, dug in the banks and faced 
with boards, or shanties of the most primitive 
description. They were not built of logs, as is 
popularly believed. It is to the Swede alone that 
we owe the "block-house" of our early Indian 
wars and the "log cabin" of political campaigns. 
Two Dutch travellers who saw Burlington when 
it was two years old, say on this point that " the 
English and many others have houses made of 
nothing but clap-boards, as they call them here. 
They make a wooden frame, as in Westphalia and 
at Altona, but not so strong, then split boards of 
clapwood like coopers' staves, though unbent, so 
that the thickest end isabout a little finger thick, and 
the other is made sharp like the end of a knife. 
They are about five or six feet long, and are nailed 
on with the ends lapping over each other. . . . 
When it is cold and windy the best people plaster 
them with clay.""!" From these details we can 
imagine the homes of our first settlers, "many of 

* Smith says it was first called New Beverley, and next, Bridling- 
ton, and by the latter name it appears on Holme's Map, dated 1682. 
I find, however, that the earliest letters written from the place 
(several within a week or two of the beginning of the town) are 
dated at "Burlington." Bridlington and Burlington are the same 
name, and the latter is a very old form of the word. Richard 
Boyle was created Earl oi Burlington in 1663. 

f Journal of Bankers and Sluyter in 1679, published by Long 
Island Hist. Soc, vol. i. pp. 173-175- 



48 

whom," says one of them, "had been men of 
good estate." That they remembered their Eng- 
lish homes with fond affection is proved in many 
ways. Wills gave to one portion of the neighbor- 
hood the name of his native "Northampton," 
which it bears to-day, and the township of "Wil- 
lihgborough," where many of you dwell, recalls 
the home of Ollive. "York" Street is close at 
hand, though the bridge that bore that name has 
disappeared; and what boy is there in Burlington 
to-day that has not thrown a line from "London" 
bridge? "Oh, remember us," they write to their 
friends in England, " for we cannot forget you; 
many waters cannot quench our love nor distance 
wear out the deep remembrance. . . Though 
the Lord hath been pleased to remove us far away 
from you, as to the ends of the earth, yet are we 
present with you. Your exercises are ours ; our 
hearts are dissolved in the remembrance of you." 

But though their thoughts turned fondly to 
England and their brethren, they did not repine. 
They found the country good; "so good," wrote 
one as early as the 6th of November, 1677, "that 
I do not see how reasonably it can be found fault 
with. The country and air seem very agreeable 
to our bodies, and we have very good stomachs to 
our victuals. Here is plenty of provision, of fish 
and fowl and good venison, not dry, but full of 
gravy. And I do believe that this river of Dela- 



49 

ware is as good a river as most in the world." "I 
like the place well," said another, three days after- 
ward; "it's like to be a healthful place and very- 
pleasant to live in." A report having spread in 
England that the water and soil were bad, and 
danger to be feared from bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, 
and Indians — the first, but not the last time that 
Burlington has been slandered — six of the leading 
settlers indignantly deny its truth, declaring that 
"those that cannot be contented with such a coun- 
try and such land as this is are not worthy to come 
here." "I affirm," said one, "that these reports 
are not true, and fear they were spoke from a spirit 
of envy. It is a country that produceth all things 
for the support and sustenance of man. I have 
seen orchards laden with fruit to admiration ; their 
very limbs torn to pieces with the weight, and 
most delicious to the taste and lovely to behold. 
I have seen an apple tree from a pippin kernel 
yield a barrel of curious cyder, and peaches in such 
plenty that some people took their carts a peach 
gathering. I could not but smile at the conceit 
of it. I have known this summer forty bushels 
of bold wheat from one bushel sown. We have 
from the time called May till Michaelmas great 
store of very good wild fruits — strawberries, cran- 
berries, and whortleberries, very wholesome. Of 
the cranberries, like cherries for color and big- 
ness, an excellent sauce is made for venison and 



50 

turkeys. Of these we have great plenty, and all 
sorts of fish and game. Indeed the country, take 
it as a wilderness, is a most brave country, and," 
he adds, in words that you may make use of to the 
world yourselves to-day, "whatever envy or evil 
spies may speak of it, I could wish you all here."* 
From the Indians these settlers experienced little 
trouble. The Mantas, it is true, who dwelt hard 
by, had committed a murder at Matiniconk and 
plundered poor Jegou some years before the arrival 
of the Kent, but these were exceptional instances. 
The Leni Lenape were a peaceful race. Upright 
in person and straight of limb, their fierce coun- 
tenances of tawny reddish-brown belied a gentle 
nature. Grave even to sadness, courteous to stran- 
gers and respectful to the old, never in haste to 
speak, and of cool, deliberate temper, this myste- 
rious people easily forgave injury and never forgot 
kindness — more than repaying the benevolent hu- 
manity of the settlers of Burlington by a forbear- 
ing friendship that lived as long as they. At the 
same time at which the savages of Virginia were 
punishing cold-blooded murder with passionate 
bloodshed, and scourging with fury every planta- 
tion from the Potomac to the James, and on the 
northern sky the light of blazing villages, from 
one end of New England to the other, marked 

* Smith's Hist, of N. J. contains these letters. 



51 

the despairing vengeance of King Philip, the 
banks of Delaware smiled in unbroken peace, and 
their simple-hearted native, conscious of the fate 
that vi^ould speedily overtake his people — which 
no one foretold sooner or more touchingly than he 
— was saying in a council here in Burlington : '* We 
are your brothers, and intend to live like brothers 
with you. We will have a broad path for you 
and us to walk in. If an Indian be asleep in this 
path, the Englishman shall pass him by and do 
him no harm; and if an Englishman be asleep in 
it, the Indian shall pass him by and say: 'He is 
an Englishman — he is asleep — let him alone.' 
The path shall be plain; there shall not be in it a 
stump to hurt the feet "* 

The soil fertile, the climate healthy, the situa- 
tion good, and the Indian friendly, the little 
settlement soon became a prosperous colony. 
Ships began to come with emigrants from difter- 
ent parts of England. The Willing Mind, from 
London, with sixty passengers; the *' Flieboat" 
Martha, from the older Burlington, with one hun- 
dred and fourteen; the Shield, from Hull, and 

* Smith's Hist, of N. J., p. loo, and 136, note; Bancroft, vol. 
ii. p. 102, et seq.; Idem, p. 216. "When six of the hostile chief- 
tains presented themselves as messengers to treat of a reconciliation, 
in the blind fury of the moment they were murdered." This was 
in 1675. The war in Virginia continued more than a year after- 
wards. King Philip's "rebellion" broke out in June, 1675. He 
was killed in August, 1676. 



52 

several more beside. It is this last one of which 
the story is told that tacking too near the high 
shore called "Coaquannock," her masts caught 
in an overhanging tree, and her passengers, un- 
conscious of the Philadelphia that was soon to be, 
were struck by the beauty of the site, and spoke 
of its fitness for a town.* The forests were 
felled and farms sprang up in all directions. 
Ollive's new mill, on the "Mill Creek" that runs 
into Rancocas, was quickly built. The trade with 
Barbadoes was begun by Mahlon Stacy and others 
as early as the winter of 1679-80, whose "ketch 
of fifty tons" met with the good fortune their en- 
terprise deserved. By an Act of Assembly in the 
following year, "all vessels bound to the province" 
were "obliged to enter and clear at" its "chief 
town and head," "the port of Burlington," and at 
the same time two annual fairs were provided for 
in the market street, "for all sorts of cattle and 
all manner of merchandise. "f But in the bustle 
of the growing town and the attractions of an 
opening trade, other things were not forgotten. 
The first act of the meeting was to provide for 
the collections of money once a month for "ye 
support of ye poor," and the next to consider 
"selling of rum unto Indians," and whether it 

* Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, vol. i. p. lo. 
f Learning and Spicer's Laws of N. J., p. 435; Hazard's Annals 
of Penna., vol. i. p. 537. 



52 

*'be lawful att all for friends pfessing truth to be 
concerned in itt." It has been said that the 
Quaker has never been the friend of education. 
These at least are two honorable truths in the 
history of Burlington : That there, before 1690, 
William Bradford found work and welcome for his 
printing press;* and her people — before William 

* My authority for this statement was the following: "At A yearly 
meeiinge held at Burlington in west new Jersey the loth of the 7th 
month 1690: An Account beinge giuen heere that seuerall particular 
friends haue engaged themselues to raise A considerable sum of 
money for the encouragement of the printer to continue the press 
heere : it is Agreed that it bee recommend to each quarterly meet- 
inge belonging to this meetinge." The Hon. John William Wal- 
lace, who is an authority on these matters, and has given especial 
attention to the life of the printer Wm. Bradford (viWe his valuable 
Address on the subject in New York in May, 1863), has called my 
attention to the followii>g extract from the Salem Mo. Mtg. Minute 
Book jSiO. I : "whereas in the month Called nouember: 1689: A 
gratuity was giuen to William bradford printer that hee should con- 
tinue his press in Philadelphia it being forty pound A yeare from 
and After the date hereof for Seuen years;" and adds, "on 5th 
mo. 26th 1689 Bradford, being then in Philada., gave notice to 
Friends of his purpose to go to England and got a betie decessit 
accordingly. Now, by the above extract the meeting in 1689 gave 
(actually gave, it would seem) a gratuity to Bradford to 'continue' 
his press in Philadelphia for seven years from that time. We have 
in 1688 and also in 1693 books printed by him in Philadelphia. In 
1690 he established a paper mill on the Wissahickon. It would 
seem, therefore, that the word 'here' does not mean here in Bur- 
lington, but here in America, or hereabouts and within the juris- 
diction of the Quakers assembled at Burlington." I agree with 
Mr. Wallace that "this, I fear, hardly makes out the case for our 
dear old town of Burlington;" but I leave the passage in the text 



54 

Penn had ever set foot on American soil — com- 
memorated the fifth anniversary of their settle- 
ment by consecrating ''to the use of the public 
schools" the broad acres of Matiniconk, and have 
kept them piously devoted to that purpose from 
that day to this.* 

How^ fortunate would it have been, my friends 
of Burlington, if the spirit had moved one of these 
early settlers to have given posterity a sketch of 
the daily life of the young colony. How delight- 
ful to have been able to see, as with the eye of a 
contemporary, the infant town. The forest of 
oak and sassafras, and birch and maple encircling 
the island; the broad main street cut through the 
clearing, and but lately freed from stumps; the 
clap-board houses beginning to rise on every side; 
Samuel Jennings', on the corner of Pearl Street, 
the new Governor, "a man of both spiritual and 
worldly wisdom, a suppressor of vice and an en- 
courager of virtue ;""]' and Thomas Gardiner's next, 
where the meetings are held till the new place of 
worship can be built. It is at one of these, per- 
haps, that the Labadists dine in 1679, on their way 
to Tinicum and Upland. " The Quakers," they 

to stand as spoken, with this correction in a note. The town was 
not, in all probability, the scene of Bradford's labors, as I thought 
at the time I said so, but the townsfolk are entitled to the credit 
which I claimed for them just the same. 

* Act of Assembly, Sept. 28th, 1682. 

■f Robert Proud, quoted by Bowden in his History of Friends. 



S5 

write, "are a very worldly people. On the win- 
dow we found a copy of Virgil, as if it had been 
a common hand-book, and Helmont's book on 
medicine!" How pleasant, too, to walk in imagi- 
nation along the bank of the newly-surveyed river 
lots and admire the good ship Shield, as she lies 
in the stream, moored by a long rope to a leaning 
buttonwood* that stands by the water's edge, or 
watch yonder canoe as it comes swiftly across the 
river laden with the fat carcass of a noble buck. 
The village is full of cheery noise, the constant 
sound of the hammer and the saw, and every now 
and then a crash like distant thunder tells of the 
falling of some giant tree. Now, perhaps, a horn 
blown from Thomas Gardiner's calls the town 
meeting together, to appoint ten men to help lay 
out the town's share of a road through the wilder- 
ness to Salem, or four of the proprietors to get to 
work to drain the meadows, or solemnly resolve 
"that the townfolk meet at five o'clock the next 
morning to go and clear the brush upon the 
island." It may be market day, and here are 
Indians with venison and turkeys and plenty ot 
wild fruit for sale; or, yonder on a stump, Ollive, 
the magistrate, holds his rustic court, and, while 
his neighbors stand reverently by, dispenses im- 

* Tradition says that this is the gigantic tree in front of Gov. 
Franklin's house (now torn down) about which the "witches used 
to dance." • 



56 

partial justice. The Sabbath morning comes to 
begin the busy week, and the little town is still. 
The hammer and the saw are laid aside, and the 
axe rests undisturbed against the tree. All is so 
quiet that the rustling of the dead leaves can be 
heard as they fall through the frosty air, and the 
cawing of the crows as they rise from their roost 
in the distant pines. No sentinel, with leathern 
doublet, his matchlock resting in the hollow of 
his arm, stands guard by yonder house, or watches 
with suspicious eye, his hand upon his cutlass, the 
curious savage who walks unbidden to the door. 
Within is ga hered a little company, seated in 
solemn silence or listening with rapt attention as 
one of their number, with rude but reverent man- 
ner, and perhaps unlettered speech, talks of the 
Inner Light and of the goodness of Him who 
placed them in the wilderness and protects them 
there. 

A simple anecdote recorded by a descendant, 
and, until now, forgotten for a century, is worthy 
of remembrance:* "Tradition delivers," he says, 
"that when Thomas Ollive acted in the quadruple 
character of governor, preacher, tanner, and mil- 
ler, a customer asked, *Well, Thomas, when can 

* My friend Brinton Coxe, Esq., to whom I am under many obli- 
gations for kind and intelligent assistance in gathering materials, 
has given me this, which he found in a MS. note written by R. 
Smith in 1796 on page 573 of his.copy of Learning and Spicer. 



S7 

my corn be ground?' *I shall be at the Assembly 
next Third-day,' replied the good man, *and I 
will bring it for thee behind me on my horse.' " 
Such were your governors in those early days ! 
O rara temporum simplicitas! 

What wonder then that the seed planted by 
those hands took root and brought forth fruit an 
hundred fold! What wonder that the strong right 
arm of men like this conquered the forest and 
made the wilderness to bloom! What wonder 
that as this godly people looked back to those 
days beyond the stormy sea their hearts were 
stirred within them and they cried: "Blessed be 
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob that 
has called us not hither in vain!" "He was with 
us and is with us; yea, he hath made our way 
for us and proved and confirmed to us his word 
and providence!" "The desert sounds; the 
wilderness rejoices, a visitation outwardly and 
inwardly is come to America; God is Lord of all 
the earth and at the setting of the sun will his 
name be famous."* 

My countrymen : Since those words were spoken 
and this town was built two hundred years have 
come and gone. The seed that could blossom in 
the dense thickets of New Jersey and find a root 
among the rocks of Plymouth has planted a con- 

* Letter of Wm. Penn and others, ist month, 1683. Vide Bow- 
den's Hist, of Friends, vol. i. p. 20. 
4 



58 

tinent with liberty and law. The light that glim- 
mered on the Delaware and lit the cold waves of 
Boston Bay, was but the dawn of that advancing 
age whose morning beams now shine with impar- 
tial splendor upon all mankind. Your fathers' 
prayers are granted, and their prophecy fulfilled ! 
Here on the threshold of your history I needs 
must stop. My task is finished, and my duty 
done. How could I hope to tell the story of two 
centuries? How dear old St. Mary's Church was 
founded in Queen Anne's reign. How in colonial 
days great men as Governors lived in Burlington ; 
how Council and Assembly met in the now van- 
ished court-house, before whose door one day 
George Whitefield preached; how, in a darker 
time, the Hessians camped in a meadow beyond 
Yorkshire Bridge; how the Whigs knocked one 
night at Margaret Morris's door, and the Tory 
parson hid trembling in the "auger hole;" how 
patriotic gondolas bombarded Burlington, and 
managed to hit a house at Broad and York Streets; 
how, in the following year, the British in their 
turn opened the cannonade, and after an hour's 
fire knocked a hole in Adam Shepherd's stable 
near the wharf; how things were quiet for a little 
while till Light-Horse Harry Lee came thunder- 
ing in.* 

* James Craft's Journal, Penna. Hist. Mag., vol. i. p. 300: "6th 
mo. i6th, 1770, Geo. Whitefield, the Great Calvanistic Preacher, 
preacht before the Court House. Great Audience. Deal of humor. 



59 

And what can I hope to say, in the last mo- 
ments of so long a speech, of the inhabitants of 
a city whose life has not been more peaceful than 
her sons illustrious. From the beginning to the 
end, in times of the Colony, the Province, and 
State, it has always been the same. Here were 
the famous printers, Bradford the pioneer, and 
Isaac Collins, who published the first Jersey news- 
paper.* Here dwelt Judge Daniel Coxe, who 
planned a union for the Colonies full thirty years 
ere Franklin thought of it, and half a century 
before the Revolution. f Here came Elias Boudi- 
not, the President of Congress, to pass the evening 

1 2th mo. nth, 1776, sad work this day. The Hessians came. 
Town fired on by gondolas. Nobody hurt, altho' large and small 
shot was fired plenty and in all directions. 5th mo. roth, 1778. 
British came back (from Bordentown) and O what a whipping our 
poor town got, tho' through blessing nobody hurt. Bullets and 
every kind of shot showered down upon us for hours. 12th mo. 
1 6th, 1778, Lee's troop of horse at Burlington." For an amusing 
account of Dr. Odell's adventure in the hidden chamber called the 
"Auger hole," see Dr. Hills' excellent Hist, of the Church in Bur- 
lington, p. 321. Vide Barber and Howe's Hist. Col., pp. 94, 95. 

* Of Bradford I have spoken in an earlier note. Isaac Collins 
was a man of great prominence in the Colony, He was appointed 
Colonial printer in 1770, and issued the first number of the New 
Jersey Gazette on December 5th, 1777. 

f In the preface to his " Description of Carolana, &c. &c.," pub- 
lished in London in 1722. He was the son of Daniel Coxe, of 
London, the Proprietary Governor, and was a Judge of the Supreme 
Court. The Coxe family was long prominent in the history of 
Burlington and West Jersey. 



6o 

of his well-spent life; and In the spacious garden 
of his house some of you may have seen his 
daughter and her friend, those venerable women 
who had borne the names of William Bradford 
and Alexander Hamilton.* Here, on a Saturday 
morning, weary with walking "more than fifty 
miles," clad "in a working dress," his "pockets 
stuffed out with shirts and stockings," a boy of 
seventeen came trudging into town. Nobody 
noticed him, except to smile perhaps, save an old 
woman who talked to him kindly and sold him 
gingerbread. Years afterward he came again to 
print the money of the Province and become the 
friend of all the great men who dwelt in Burling- 
ton, for by that time the world had begun to hear 
of Benjamin Franklin. f Two other boys belong 
to Burlington. Born side by side, beneath adjoin- 
ing roofs, close to this spot where you are gathered 
now, both became sailors; but of different desti- 
nies. The elder, after a brief but brilliant life, 

* Elias Boudinot was President of Congress in 1782, and Director 
of the Mint under Gen. Washington's administration. He was the 
first President, and in conjunction with his friend and kinsman 
Mr. Wallace, the originator of the American Bible Society. His 
daughter and only child married the Hon. William Bradford, 
Attorney-General in Washington's cabinet. Alexander Hamilton 
had been a friend in the family of Mr. Boudinot in his boyhood, 
and the colleague of his son-in-law in the cabinet. The friendship 
between the widows of those two remarkable men, both so untimely 
cut off in their prime, continued to the end of their long lives. 

I Bigelow's Franklin's Autobiography, pp. 110 and 163. 



6i 

fell In disastrous battle on the deck with the Im- 
mortal cry upon his lips of "Don't give up the 
ship!" The younger lived to a green and vigorous 
old age, to make those Jersey names of Fenlmore 
and Cooper famous forever In American litera- 
ture !* Count this array of native or adopted 
citizens: Ellis and Stockton and Dutton and Ster- 
ling and Woolman and the mysterious Tyler; 
Franklin, the Tory governor, and Temple, his 
accomplished son; Samuel Smith, the historian, 
and Samuel J. Smith, the poet; William Coxe, 
the pomologlst, and John Griscom, the friend of 
learning ; Shippen and Cole In medicine, and 
Dean and the Gummeres In education; Bloom- 
field and Mcllvalne and Wall In politics, and at 
the bar, Griffith, Wallace, Reed, two generations 
of the Mcllvaines and four of the name of Kin- 
sey, and those great masters of the law, Charles 
Chauncey and Horace Binney.f Read the long 

* James Fenimore Cooper in a published letter dated 1844 said : 
"I was born in the last house but one of the main street of Bur- 
lington as one goes into the country. There are two houses of 
brick stuccoed, built together, the one having five windows in front 
and the other four, the first being the last house in the street. In 
this house dwelt Mr. Lawrence, my old commander, Captain Law- 
rence's father, and in the four- window house my father." 

t Charles Ellis, Samuel Stockton, and Thomas Dutton were pro- 
minent citizens in Burlington half a century ago; the latter in con- 
nection with John Griscom, LL.D., W. R. Allen, and Thomas 
Milnor, was active in founding the Public Schools, and the names 
of all of them are honorably borne in Burlington to-day. James 



62 

list of teachers of religion; I name the dead alone 
— Grellet and Cox and Hoskins and Mott and 

Sterling was a famous merchant — his store at the corner of Broad 
and Main Streets was known from Sussex to Cape May. James 
Hunter Sterling is remembered as the benefactor of the Library to 
whom we owe the handsome building. Richard Tyler was an accom- 
plished Englishman of wealth and evidently of rank, who settled 
in Burlington early in this century. There was some mystery about 
his life which has never been solved. It has been conjectured that 
he was a relative of Warren Hastings. John VVoolman, the famous 
Quaker preacher, was a Burlington County man, and the name has 
existed there for the past two centuries; the late Burr Woolman 
and his son Franklin Woolman, Esq., have both been Surveyor- 
Generals of West Jersey. Governor Wm. Franklin lived in the 
large house on the bank afterward occupied by Charles Chauncey 
as a summer residence, and torn down in 1873. His son, Temple, 
lived in elegant retirement with his books, and died at Franklin 
Park on the Rancocas, about six miles out of town. Samuel Smitli, 
the historian, was long Treasurer of the Province. A notice of 
him has recently appeared as a preface to a second edition of his 
history, published in 1877, and an interesting paper on the subject 
of Samuel J. Smith and his writings can be found at page 39 of 
vol. ix. of the Proceedings of the N. J. Hist. Soc. Both are by 
John Jay Smith, Esq. Dr. Wm. Coxe was quite famous as a po- 
mologist about the beginning of this century, and Griscom's Travels 
was a noted and much read book. Dr. Edward Shippen lived 
many years in the house occupied for nearly fifty by the late Joseph 
Askew in Ellis Street at the end of Broad. Dr. Nathaniel W. Cole 
was an excellent citizen and a physician of great skill and expe- 
rience. James Dean, LL. D., Prof, of Mathematics in Vermont 
University; John Gummere, the author of works on Astronomy, 
Surveying, &c., and Samuel R. Gummere, of others on Oratory, 
Geography, &c., are honored names in the history of Education. 
"Gummere's schools" had a famous reputation forty years ago. 
Joseph Bloomfield, a soldier of the Revolution and long Governor 
of the State, lived in the large house on Main Street known by his 



Dillwyn among Friends, and in the Church Tal- 
bot, the missionary, the witty Odell, the venerable 

name. Joseph Mcllvaine was United States Senator in 1820, Gar- 
ret D. Wall in 1834, and his son James W. Wall in i860. Wm. 
Griffith was a most accomplished lawyer and stood at the head of 
the bar. He was one of John Adams' "Midnight Judges ;" Joshua 
Maddox Wallace, also at one time Judge of the Pleas of Burlington 
Co., was a very distinguished man, the co-worker of Mr. Boudinot 
in the Bible Society. He was the father of another well-known 
lawyer, John B. Wallace, and the grandfather of two others whose 
names are prominent in American legal literature — John William 
Wallace, lately the Reporter of the U. S. Supreme Court, and 
Horace Binney Wallace. Bowes Reed was a brother of General 
Joseph Reed, Washington's Aid- de-Camp. Joseph Mcllvaine, the 
Senator, was also distinguished at the Bar and the father of Bloom- 
field Mcllvaine, whose early death alone prevented his taking the 
front rank in the profession. The Kinsey family has been remark- 
able in the law. John Kinsey, the son of the first comer, was noted 
in provincial history as a leader of the profession ; John Kinsey, 
his son, was Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and died in 1750; James 
Kinsey, his grandson, was Chief Justice of New Jersey, and the 
late Charles Kinsey, his great-grandson, was an eminent and learned 
lawyer. Mr. Chauncey and Mr. Binney lived for many summers 
side by side on the bank, the latter at the corner of Wood Street, 
in the house owned by the late Edward B. Grubb. 

There are many other names which one might speak of and 
which ought to be remembered ; Samuel Emlen, Elihu Chauncey, 
who lived where the College stands to-day, Charles Read, Judge 
of Admiralty before the Revolution, and Andrew Allen the grand- 
son of Chief Justice Allen, "a. most accomplished man," at one 
time British Consul at Boston, but after 1812 a resident of Burling- 
ton, in the house where St. Mary's Hall was afterwards erected, 
were all men whose names ought not to be forgotten. Barbaroux 
and Benoist were Frenchmen of family and fortune who settled in 
Burlington after the troubles in San Domingo. Both of these fam- 
ilies lived on the bank. John Michael Hanckel was the Principal 



64 

Wharton, the saintlike Mcllvaine, and that prince- 
ly prelate — the most imposing figure of my boyish 
memories — whose tongue alone could have done 
justice to this anniversary!* 

of the Academy: "His talents," said Rev. Dr. Wharton in his 
epitaph, "were of the first order." He died at 29. In an humbler 
walk in life were Thomas Aikman, the Sexton and Undertaker, Ben 
Shepherd, and Captain Jacob Myers of the "Mayflower," a well- 
known character. 

* John Cox, John Hoskins, Richard Mott, and George Dillwyn 
were eminent as preachers. Stephen Grellet had an extraordinary 
life; born a nobleman, he escaped from France during the terrors 
of 1793 and became a Missionary among Friends. Vide his life, 
published by Benjamin Seebohn, London. He was a man of excel- 
lent talents, and great purity and benevolence. Dr. Hills' book, 
to which I have referred before, contains the best account of Talbot, 
Odell, and Wharton. The Rt. Rev. Charles Pettit Mcllvaine, D.D., 
LL.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Ohio, was certainly one of the most 
distinguished prelates in the Episcopal Church. He was born at 
the N. W. corner of Broad and Main Streets. His father, the 
Senator, was a son of Colonel Joseph Mcllvaine of the Revolution. 
His wife was a daughter of Dr. William Coxe. I cannot condense 
into a note any expression which would convey to those who never 
knew him the place which Bishop Doane filled in Burlington be- 
tween 1840 and 1859. Riverside was an Episcopal palace, filled 
always with distinguished men from home and abroad, amongst 
whom the host was an acknowledged chief. Burlington College 
was in the beginning of an apparently flourishing life. St. Mary's 
Hall was a successful institution. St. Mary's was the cathedral 
church of the Diocese, and on every occasion, ecclesiastical, col- 
legiate, social, political, on Commencement Day, at Christmas, on 
the 4th of July, the Bishop was a prominent and fascinating figure. 
I shall never forget the wondering admiration with which I used to 
look at him ; and the fascination of his manner — for no one had 
the gift of charming the young more than- he — lingers with me still. 



65 

Now as I speak of them under the inspiration 
of these memories I seem to feel the touch of 
vanished hands and hear the sound of voices that 
are still. Before me rise the scenes of other days. 
I see the brilliant Wall ; the rough and ready Engle ; 
the venerable Grellet; Allen, your Mayor for quar- 
ter of a century ; the little form, too small for 
such a heart, of William Allinson ; the white head 
of Thomas Milnor; the well-beloved face of Court- 
landt Van Rensselaer; and the splendid countenance 
and manly form of him — the friend of many here 
— whose name I dare not trust myself to speak ! 
And you, too — friends of my boyhood's days, 
whom death has crowned with an immortal youth 
— you, young defenders of my country's honor — 
Grubb, Chase, Barclay, Baquet, and Van Rensse- 
laer — on such a day as this you, too, shall be re- 
membered !* 

* These^names need no explanatory note to-day, but I must not 
forget that a generation is rapidly approaching to whom they will 
seem as shadowy as do to me most of those which I have mentioned 
in the preceding paragraph. James W. Wall, often the candidate 
of his party for Congress and a Senator for a short time in i860, 
was a man of brilliant talents, a witty poet, a graceful writer, and 
an orator of no little power. Frederick Engle, who died a Rear 
Admiral of the U. S. Navy, was a gallant and distinguished sailor. 
Of the venerable and excellent Grellet I have already spoken : he 
lived in Main Street, next the alley called Library Street, opposite 
Governor Bloomfield's. When it was known that perhaps "Friend 
Grellet would preach," there were many of the world's people at 
meeting. I have heard him, and recall a tall slender figure speak- 

5 



66 

My countrymen : The age that saw the birth 
of Burlington has passed away. The passions that 

ing with strong French accent, and with French rather than Quaker 
warmth and vehemence. Wm. R. Allen was a strong man in every 
sense; he made himself felt in the community in many ways. The 
name of Allinson is honorably remembered. David AUinson was 
a publisher and Samuel a brewer; William J. was a druggist and 
apothecary; he was active in all that concerned the good of Bur- 
lington, and was a great benefactor of the Library and other insti- 
tutions. He had much literary taste, and great antiquarian knowl- 
edge and zeal. Thomas Milnor was another excellent man, whose 
name should not be forgotten. Of the Rev. Dr. Cortlandt Van 
Rensselaer all Burlingtonians have pleasant memories. His activity 
in all good works outside of his church, of which he may be called 
the founder, as well as in it, endeared him greatly to the commu- 
nity. He was a very distinguished minister in the Presbyterian 
Church, and a man of great learning and culture. Frederick 
Brown of Philadelphia built his house called "Summer Home" in 
1847, ^"<J made it his place of refuge from the cares of an active 
life, as laborious as it was singularly useful, until his death in 1864. 
Here were the extensive graperies filled with well-selected vines, 
the orchards of dwarf pears, the rare plants and flowers, and the 
choice trees in which he took such genuine delight and which must 
ever be associated in his children's minds with the memories of a 
perfectly happy childhood. 

" Ille te mecum locus et beatae 
Postulant arces; ibi tu calentem 
Debita sparges lacrima favillam 
Patris amici." 

There are other names which ought to be remembered on such 
anniversaries, but those of Isaac Parker Grubb, Richard Chase, 
Mark Wilkes Collet Barclay, Francis Baquet, and Cortlandt Van 
Rensselaer, Jr., I love especially to recall. They all died in the 
active service of their country during the Rebellion. Three of 
them "with their bodies bore the brunt of battle, and after a short 
and quickly decided crisis of their fate, at the height of glory, not 



67 

raged about her cradle have long been dead. The 
furies of contending creeds have been forgotten, 
and Quaker and Presbyterian, Churchman and 
Catholic, rest in her bosom side by side. The 
twin sycamores by yonder meeting-house stand 
guard above a soil enriched with the bones of six 
generations of your kindred, and the spire of old 
St. Mary's springs from a doubly consecrated 
mould. The tree, the ancient church, the plea- 
sant field, the flowing river^ — these shall endure, 
but you shall pass away. The lifeless thing shall 
live and the deathless die. It is God's mystery;, 
we cannot solve it. That change that has come 
to all must come to you — and long before this 
story shall be told again, you will have followed 
the footsteps of your fathers. But still, on the 
banks of Delaware shall stand your ancient town.. 
Time shall not harm her nor age destroy the 
beauty of her face. Wealth may not come to 
her, nor power, nor fame among the cities of the 
earth; but civil freedom and liberty of conscience 
are now her children's birthright, and she rests 
content. Happy, indeed, if they can exclaim, 

of fear, yielded up their lives !" Of all it is true that, in those other 
words of Pericles, "they laid down their bodies and their lives for 
their country, and therefore as their private reward they receive a 
deathless fame and the noblest of sepulchres, not so much that in 
which their bones are entombed as that in which their glory is pre- 
served to be had in everlasting remembrance on all occasions, whe- 
ther of speech or action.'" 



68 

with each recurring anniversary, as their fathers 
did two hundred years ago : "We are a family at 
peace within ourselves !"* 

* Wrote Wm. Penn and others in the ist month (March), 1683: 
"Dear friends and brethren, we have no cause to murmur; our lot 
is fallen every way in a good place, and the Son of God is among 
us. We are a family at peace within ourselves, and truly great is 
our joy therefore." I add an amusing quotation from old Gabriel 
Thomas. Writing in 1698 he says: "Of Latvyeis and Physicians 
I shall say nothing, because this Country is very Peaceable and 
Healthy; long may it so continue and never have occasion for the 
Tongue of the one, nor the Pen of the other, both equally destruc- 
tive to Men's Estates and Lives; besides forsooth they, Hang-Man 
like, have a License to Murder and Make Mischief." 




♦'THE SETTLEMENT OF BURLINGTON" 

AN ORATION * 

DELIVERED IN THAT CITY, DECEMBER 6, 1877 

BY 

HENRY ARMITT BROWN 

IN COMMEMORATION OF 

THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

of its Settlement by the passengers of the good ship Kent, 

who landed at Raccoon Creek, Aug. i6th, O. S., 

and laid out the town on Chygoe's Island 

"towards ye latter part of ye 

8th month," 1677 



PUBLISHED BY RESOLUTION OF THE CITIZENS 



BURLINGTON, N. J. 
1878 



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